Part 6

One might be inclined to think that with the numerous mountain railways that have penetrated into the very heart of the Alps during the last few years, the big observation telescope was really a superfluous luxury. As a matter of fact, however, the railways have rendered the telescope more necessary than ever. Indeed, the railway authorities do not consider their equipment complete unless at the very summit of their line they erect one of these giant instruments. These wonderful railways--monuments of engineering skill though they be--only land one several thousand feet below the actual summit. The view here, of course, is grand, but the snow-covered peak, the almost untrodden summit--the very thing the ordinary individual most wishes to see--is almost undiscernible to the naked eye. But with the telescope it is different. The summit comes right into the field of vision in an instant, grand and majestic, standing out boldly and clearly, appearing to be only a few yards away. Then the glass can be turned upon the whole surface of the mountain, and in this way one learns more about the formation of the rocks and glaciers and steep ridges than he would do by weeks of arduous climbing among them.

A word or two about the telescopes themselves will be appropriate here, for they are no ordinary instruments. The one at Nürren is valued at a hundred and twenty pounds. It is a double instrument, and two persons can look through it at the same time. The other instruments depicted in the various photographs are valued at from sixty-five to ninety pounds apiece. They were made by the famous optical firm of Carl Zeiss, of Jena, and represent the last word in telescope construction. Not all the telescopes through which visitors may peep for a small fee on the mountains of Switzerland were supplied by this firm, though there are certainly a large number of them. They are to be found on the Riffelalp, above Zermatt; on the Schynige Platte, near Interlaken; on the Rigi, the Weissenstein, near Solothurn; the Wengern-Alp, on the Jungfrau Railway; at Berne, Grindelwald, and other places.

Without going into technicalities, it may be added that the instruments are fitted with the new Jena glass, which is perfectly transparent, and, therefore, gives a clear image. In cutting and polishing the glasses every care was taken to eliminate chromatic aberrations, this being of great importance for landscape observations, the image being thus freed from the distracting coloured borders with which every user of ordinary glasses is familiar. The instruments may be roughly divided into two classes: monocular and binocular (_i.e._, those through which the observation is made with one eye only, and those through which it is made with two). The former are mostly fitted with a revolving appliance, the turning of which allows of a rapid change of magnifying power. The object glasses in these instruments vary from four inches to five inches in diameter. The four-inch instrument magnifies objects thirty-five, fifty-three, and seventy-three times, according to the turning of the wheel, and the five-inch glass instrument thirty-five, fifty-eight, and a hundred and sixteen times.

The binocular instruments are contrivances astonishing in their effect. It is well known that our power of perspective rapidly decreases as the distance from the object increases. The reason of this is that the facial angle at which objects appear decreases with the distance, and finally becomes so slight that we lose all power of estimating it. We can, however, enlarge this angle by approaching the object, or by bringing it apparently near to us. This is accomplished in these five-foot telescopes by the employment of an artificial medium, so that separate objects in a landscape view twenty miles distant--houses, trees, people, etc.--appear as if they were only eighteen yards away. The effect is wonderful and charming. Mountain peaks and wooded valleys, which when seen through an ordinary telescope are all apparently on the same plane, stand out sharp, clear, and in glowing natural colours.

There is a telescope on the Uetliberg, close to Zürich, through which on a clear day it is possible to detect the stone signal on one of the peaks of the Diablerets, near Lausanne, almost at the other end of Switzerland, being a distance of not less than ninety-six miles. This signal is only about four feet high. Climbers on the Titlis, forty miles distant, can easily be seen through this telescope, as well as the hotel on the Faulhorn, sixty miles distant, and, in very fine weather, the small trigonometrical signal itself. From the instrument on the Rigi the crevasses in all parts of the Alpine chain, and also one of the church clocks in Schaffhausen, may be plainly seen. From the observation station on the Riffelalp the movements of the Matterhorn climbers can be followed as clearly as if they were within hailing distance. Through the telescope on the Schynige Platte in the Bernese Oberland the timid and unapproachable chamois may be observed on precipices miles distant, and persons on the four-miles-distant Faulhorn are easily distinguishable.

When it is remembered that there were seventy five fatalities in the Alps last year, and three hundred and fifty more or less grave accidents to climbers, it will be seen that observation of the movements of persons upon the mountains through the telescopes fulfils a useful purpose. There is no doubt that Mr. Turner, a well-known English Alpinist, owes his life to-day to the fact that he was watched in this way during his attempt to cross the Col Bonder-Krinden (seven thousand two hundred feet high) last season. He was accompanied by a guide named Amschwand. An observer at a telescope watched their ascent and followed them step by step, until a blinding snowstorm arose. They were then lost to view for several minutes, when suddenly they were detected apparently almost buried in snow and doing their utmost to struggle through it. The observer gave the alarm and, it being then late in the afternoon, it was decided to send a search-party out on the following morning at sunrise. Meanwhile the couple on the mountain realized that their only hope of life was to reach a hut on the pass, and they heroically struggled on through six feet of snow. They arrived at the hut exhausted and without food, for they had brought none, as the Col, under ordinary conditions, is easy to climb. The snow penetrated into the hut and the unfortunate pair were literally buried beneath it. Next morning ten guides left Adelboden to search for them, solely because their distress had been noticed through the telescope. The rescuers, however, were driven back by avalanches, several of them being injured. A second search-party was finally got together, and they succeeded, after great hardships and at no little risk, in digging their way to the hut, where they found Mr. Turner and his guide starving, frost-bitten, and in the last stage of exhaustion. They had been imprisoned in the hut for forty-eight hours. After administering restoratives the rescuers carried the couple to Adelboden.

Last season thirteen persons lost their lives in the Alps while attempting to gather edelweiss and other mountain flowers. There is no doubt the number would have been greater were it not for the part played by the telescopes. Two young English ladies staying at Zermatt decided to collect some edelweiss and take it back to London with them. They learned that the flowers could be obtained within four hours' journey up the mountain, and one bright morning started off in the highest spirits. Everything went well until late in the afternoon, when they were returning with their prize, much pleased with themselves as the result of their adventure. If they had followed the same path as that which they had taken, all would no doubt have been well; but, believing they could make the journey shorter, they descended by a different route and came to grief. Suddenly they found their way blocked, and decided to negotiate a short but dangerous ridge. In doing this one of them fell a distance of some twenty feet, fortunately into fairly soft snow, but the weight of the lady's body broke her ankle, and there she lay, unable to move. With the greatest difficulty her companion got down to her and remained by her side. Then a snowstorm came on, descended, and blotted them from view. This accident was witnessed through a telescope by a boy, who had sense enough to give the alarm, and two guides were at once dispatched to escort the ladies down the mountain. They soon found them, but it was clear that if the rescuers had not arrived when they did the two girls might have fared very badly. They had completely lost their nerve, and were found huddled together in the snow, crying hysterically.

Few mountains look more absolutely inaccessible than the mighty Matterhorn, standing up at the head of the Zermatt Valley like a prodigious obelisk, some fifteen thousand feet in height. The first impression one gets on viewing the mountain is that one could no more climb it than he could scale Cleopatra's Needle. Naturally, therefore, it is the peak that attracts the attention of the more daring climbers, and watchers using the telescopes that are trained upon this mountain are frequently afforded wonderful glimpses of what it means to ascend its steep sides and cut one's way step by step up its ice-covered slopes. Some nasty accidents, too, have been witnessed through the glasses which command this famous mountain--hapless climbers have been seen to miss their footing and hurtle downwards for hundreds of feet until lost to view in some abyss. It is then that search-parties are at once organized, and for hours their movements in turn are eagerly watched through the telescopes. Then comes the pitiable sight of the return of the rescuers, dragging the dead bodies over the ice behind them. Fortunately, such incidents as these are rare, and to the ordinary visitor the mountain telescopes of Switzerland are appreciated for the wonderful scenery they reveal and the opportunities they afford of doing one's mountaineering by deputy.

An amusing narrative, setting forth the trials and tribulations of a party of Rand residents who essayed to found a "Simple Life" colony out on the South African veldt. From the first everything seemed to go wrong, and life became in consequence rather more complicated than usual. "I have suppressed the actual names of the persons concerned," writes the authoress, "but the facts are quite correct."

III.

February 18th.--A week has passed away fairly peacefully, and now the last fresh trouble is that we have got to fumigate this house with a very dangerous mixture of vitriol and prussic acid to kill various non-paying guests, such as mice, mosquitoes, etc.--the etceteras being the worst of them all.

Six-and-eightpence had to sleep in the cottage two nights because he had such a very bad cold, and in the morning, when we asked him was it nice sleeping in a room again, he replied, with his usual courtesy, "I should have slept excellently but for the moss--quitoes." Six-and-eightpence is very prim and precise. He never says "mosquitoes" like other people, but always "moss--quitoes," the "quitoes" coming some time after the "moss." Every morning after that he appeared at breakfast with some polite remark about the "moss--quitoes."

"Would a net be any use?" I asked; "for you can have mine." But Six-and-eightpence says that nets would be _no_ use for the special kind of wingless "moss--quito" that apparently infests this cottage at night.

The mere idea was unbearable, and that evening one of the men brought down the _Agricultural Journal_.

"Here's a chapter," said he, "on the only effective way to rid a house of Six-and-eightpence's moss--quitoes. It's very dangerous, and the chapter concludes with directions and pictures as to how to revive anyone who is caught by the fumes before they can bolt. It's much the same as for drowned people. You work their arms and legs up and down, don't you know, and pull out their tongues, and so on."

"Oh, dear," put in Veronica, "I don't feel up to any more dangers. The thunderstorms have stopped for a bit, and I'm longing for some peace. It's not two days since Jaikeran used Jay's Purifier for the pudding instead of milk, finding some mixed ready in a jug, and then put nails and screws into the pudding in mistake for cloves. And what I feel is, do let's have a spell of rest!"

"The thunderstorms may come on any day again," said Mr. H----, "and I don't like moss--quitoes any more than Six-and-eightpence does, and we might have to turn into the house to sleep."

"Decidedly," said our solicitor, trying to scratch his shoulder-blades as gracefully as might be. "I am for exterminating the moss--quitoes."

So it's to be done. We have spent evenings reading up the directions, and it is plain we run the risk of losing our lives, for when the chemist at the nearest town received our order for enough vitriol and prussic acid to finish off a colony, he protested and refused to supply it, making sure some huge plot was on to wipe out the population. Someone is always writing to the papers to say that some section of the community must be got rid of for the good of the country, and the chemist said he would have nothing to do with it.

"But," explained our solicitor, "it's for--ahem--moss--quitoes."

"Oh," said the chemist, greatly relieved, "all right, then; but you must sign for it, please, sir. And I suppose you know the risks? One drop of this vitriol splashing into your face will burn to the bone. As for the prussic acid, a grain wafted by the wind to your open mouth, and you're a dead man."

"Thank you," said Six-and-eightpence, trying to look as if the prospect rather pleased him than otherwise; "good morning!"

Six-and-eightpence sent me a message by the butcher--would I come in to help him carry back the ingredients? The other men had declined, saying they were his moss--quitoes, not theirs, and he was afraid, if he tried to carry eight gallon-bottles of vitriol and nine jars of cyanide (which is prussic acid) down the hill to our cottage, they might fall, and the vitriol burn out his eyes. So I went in to help.

The prussic acid was all sealed up in a most important manner with huge Government seals, and the chemist said good-bye to us as if he would be surprised to see us again.

You get into the train to come here at a level crossing where there is no station, and when you get out at another crossing you yell, as I said before, to the engine-driver, and if he can manage it he stops, though sometimes he can't stop till he has got some way off. This happened with the vitriol and things. They were strewed along the level crossing, and when the train flew past too far they had to be hastily picked up, and as the vitriol was in ordinary whisky-bottles (the corks put in loose, so that it shouldn't splash when we wanted to open them) it was an awful business.

"Hi, there!" said Six-and-eightpence to the guard, who, blithely unconscious of the nature of the bottles he was sweeping up off the line into his arms, began putting them down with bangs close to an old lady with several young children round her. "Hi! Easy! That's vitriol!"

"And pray, sir," said the old lady, who seemed convinced that the only purpose vitriol could have been invented for was to throw into people's faces, "and may I ask what you are doing with vitriol here? Guard, what does all this mean? Heaven knows, this country is infested with enough criminals without our being obliged to travel with vitriol-throwing ruffians!"

"My dear madam," said Six-and-eightpence, politely, "who said that I intended throwing this vitriol at anyone?"

"Of course you intend throwing it at someone!" said the old lady, indignantly. "Do you think I was born yesterday, sir? Do you think I never read the papers? Do you think I don't know what vitriol is for? Guard, stop the train and summon a policeman! At once!"

Luckily we arrived at our stopping-place in five minutes, or what would have happened I don't know. Six-and-eightpence had retreated into the extreme corner of the carriage, clasping the vitriol bottles in his arms and in vain entreating the old lady _not_ to attack him tooth and nail, or she certainly _would_ get the stuff into her face.

We were thankful to find ourselves out on the open veldt.

February 20th.--It's late at night, and I am writing up this record of the doings of Simplicity Hall because by to-morrow evening I may either be unconscious or be sitting contemplating the dead bodies of everybody else, for we all get up very early to-morrow morning to fumigate this house with hydrocyanic gas.

Every chink has to be closed up to make it effective, and for four mortal hours this evening we have all been cutting brown paper into strips and standing on ladders and chairs pasting up the very badly-fitting doors and windows of this abode so that none of the precious and deadly gas shall escape.

The process is that you first place in each room four receptacles for the ingredients, which when mixed instantly kill everything near--men, beasts, or insects. You have to clear out of the house all food of every kind, all plates, dishes, saucepans, and jugs--in fact, the entire contents of the kitchen; also anything in the way of furniture, clothes, ornaments, pictures, etc., that you don't want to have bleached out of recognition. The _Agricultural Journal_ blithely informs you that the process "causes no inconvenience of any kind," as all you "need remove from the house (to a safe distance) are----" and then follow the above items, which we soon discovered to mean that the entire house had to be dismantled and every stick in it hauled out on to the veldt. You naturally don't want _anything_ you have to be bleached to a cinder, so out it all has to come. The lifting, the shouting, the dragging, and the running to and fro have lasted till now--midnight. Being a fine night, and the barometer high, we decided to get everything out so that at daylight the fumigation could be started, after which everyone has to rush helter-skelter through the doors, shut them, lock them, and paste a notice on them to say whoever goes inside is a dead man. (The Transvaal law compels this.) Then you sit all day on the veldt upon your possessions till eight hours have passed, after which the thing is done, and you start to fix up your house again the same as when you first came into it.

There is a full moon, and by it we can see all our possessions strewed round Simplicity Hall for about half a square mile. Tall cupboards tower towards the stars, the dining-room table has all the chairs and Mr. H----'s packing-case piled on to it, and dressing-tables stand about, hung with bits of everyone's wardrobe, a pyjama suit floating in the breeze here, a lady's nightdress there. In the centre of the circus, in an open ring, sits Jaikeran on the kitchen range (which likewise had to be removed, said the _Agricultural Journal_, "unless you wished to have your oven permeated with prussic acid," the editor evidently thinking it possible that such might be our wish). In this fashion does our domestic prepare, in some sort of style, an evening meal for us on a "Puffing Billy" stove set on the grass.

Everybody is in a temper, and once more the Simple Life is subjected to curses low and deep, as we all sit balancing ourselves on odd pieces of furniture, eating by the light of tallow candles which eternally go out.

We should have done the horrid thing at night and let it work while we all slept in the tents, but the chemist warned us not to dream of attempting it in anything like dusk or darkness. Each person has to be told off to stand ready in one room with their allowance of vitriol, and the prussic acid safely fastened up in a paper bag, tied at the mouth with a long piece of string, so that you can drop it into the vitriol and get away before the fumes suffocate you; which happens in one and a half seconds exactly.

Should you stumble in the dark over something, nothing can save you, though they tell the rescuers how to get on their hands and knees with their heads in a wet blanket, and crawl close to the floor, in the event of a friend being caught, and a cheerful illustration of four corpses in a row is appended. Six-and-eightpence is a very highly-strung man, and is already in a state of nervousness about the whole thing, bordering on hydrophobia or suicidal mania. Anyhow, he has been talking all the evening in a very despondent way, bequeathing things (such as the old Ratner safe in his office, his "Van Dam on Divorce," his book of trout flies, his _kaross_, etc.) to one or the other of us, "just in case anything happens," he says. And we are quite certain that were we to attempt to do this thing at night something would happen for certain. Six-and-eightpence would lose his head, and either lock himself or someone else into one of the rooms after the stuff had been mixed, forgetting which side of the door he was on, or something like that. Or the MacPhairson would be too long and too careful over his mixing and fall senseless; and then, however much we should like to, how could we leave him to die? One of us would have to get into a wet blanket (first pumping the water out of the well half a mile away, by the by) and go to his rescue, and, of course, be overpowered in turn. Someone else would then have to go to _them_, and soon it would be like the ten little nigger-boys--"And then there were none."

So, talking it over--and the pasting-up of the house having taken us till long after dark--we decided to wait until the friendly daylight.

We are now retiring to rest, and all bade each other "Good night" much as shipwrecked castaways would do on an open raft in mid-ocean, with sharks waiting for them, and only someone's blanket and each other left to eat. I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't rather put up with the "moss--quitoes" than all this.

February 29th.--I was aroused at daylight on the 21st by Veronica saying, in sepulchral tones, "The day has arrived, E----. Get up."

I've always pictured that's how the warder rouses condemned criminals from their slumbers, after which somebody else appears with the cheerful query (as Jaikeran now did) as to what you would like for your last breakfast.

The criminal, to judge by narratives, invariably "does himself proud" over that last breakfast, ordering steak and oysters, kidneys on toast, and all kinds of things that can't possibly have time to do him any good.

We each ordered our own favourite dish, and sat down on odd pieces of furniture or boxes to eat it, and gazing at the wide scene of peace around, with the beauty of the typical African morning (it being a very rare thing in Africa to wake to a wet morning), we remarked in turn what a "lovely world it was," and other dying speeches of that sort, and then rose to repair to the house, where the tins had been placed overnight in the rooms, the prussic acid and the vitriol all ready in rows of bottles on a tray, and nothing to do now but the fateful mixing.